264 ORNITHOLOGY OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



black tint, instead of the faded brown presented by the examples obtained at the South 

 Orkneys during the breeding-season. This is, with little doubt, attributable to the 

 fact that the birds were either adults recently moulted, or young in their first plumage, 

 or both. 



Whenever the Scotia stopped for the purpose of taking soundings, these petrels 

 settled on the water on the look out for scraps of food, and so tame were they that 

 specimens were often captured by simply scooping them out of the water by means 

 of a large landing-net. Birds thus taken were sometimes liberated on the ship's deck, 

 where they showed their entire inability to escape, the Scotia not being long enough to 

 afford them a sufficiently extended run to enable them to rise on the wing : it was the 

 same with the Giant Petrels. 



When in pursuit of food at or near the surface, the Cape Petrels were observed to 

 plunge downwards into the water after the manner of terns. 



On February 7th, 1903 ; in 60 35' S., 39 44' W., a vast number, along with Giant 

 and Wilson's Petrels, were observed feeding on the floating carcass of a dead whale. 



Ross (I.e., ii. p. 191) saw this bird off Victoria Land, on January 14th, 1841, in 

 71 50' S., or in precisely the same latitude in which Dr Bruce made his southernmost 

 observation. 



During the voyage of the Southern Cross it does not appear to have been noted 

 beyond 65 3' S. (Sharpe, t.c., p. 157); but Vanhoffen (t.c., p. 507) observed it right 

 down to the winter-quarters of the Gauss, namely to the Antarctic Continent (Wilhelm 

 Land) in 66 2' S., 89 38' E. The Swedish Expedition (Anderson, I.e., p. 46) also 

 observed it near their southern limit, namely in the pack-ice east of Graham Land 

 in 64 30' S. 



Halobzena cserulea (Gmelin). 

 Halobxna cxrulea Cat. B., xxv. p. 431. 



Under the collective name of " Blue Petrels." both this species and at least one of 

 the Whale-birds (Prion) were confounded by the Scottish explorers a pardonable 

 error also made long years ago during Cook's voyage in the Antarctic Seas, and, no 

 doubt, often since repeated. Fortunately, however, a number of specimens of these 

 "Blue Petrels" were secured, and afford authentic information regarding both this 

 species and Prion banksi in the seas visited by the Expedition. 



The data accompanying the skins of H. cserulea, the Blue Petrel proper, enable me 

 to extend the distribution of this species far to the south of all previous records of a 

 reliable nature. Salvin (t.c., p. 431), the monographer of the petrels, gives its range as 

 being between 40 and 60 S., or practically where Cook left it in the latter half of the 

 eighteenth century ; and it has no place in the bird section of the Antarctic Manual. From 

 the Scotia, specimens were captured as far south in the Weddell Sea as 69 33' S., and 

 others, believed to be of this species, were observed as high as 71 28' S. It probably 

 occurs even beyond the limits indicated, for I think there can be little doubt that this 



